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Estate all’Italiana Festival 2021 | I racconti di mamma orca from italiana on Vimeo.
CAMPANIA THEATRE FESTIVAL
presents
5 July 2021
“I Racconti di Mamma Oca” by Roberto De Simone, with Edoardo Catemario (guitar), canonical quartet Matteo Calosci (violin), Niccolò Musumeci (violin), Margherita Fanton (viola), Zoltan Szabo (cello). A work in five movements, representative of the link between the Neapolitan musical tradition, archaic and popular, and contemporary music in its most refined sense.
BY ROBERTO DE SIMONE
I RACCONTI DI MAMMA ORCA (1996)
(FOR GUITAR AND STRING QUARTET)
PERFORMANCE BASED ON MANUSCRIPT PREVIOUS TO THE RICORDI EDITION
MOVEMENTS TOCCATA, GESUALDA, SENZA NOME, PERGOLESE, FOLLIA
BY EDOARDO CATEMARIO
SUITE GESUALDIANA* (2020)
(FOR SOLO GUITAR) – UNPUBLISHED
MOVEMENTS MADRIGAL, FRENCH SONG, GAGLIARDA
BY ROBERTO DE SIMONE
MA FIN EST MON COMMENCEMENT* (2020)
(FOR GUITAR AND STRING QUARTET)
unpublished
WITH EDOARDO CATEMARIO (GUITAR)
CANONICAL QUARTET MATTEO CALOSCI (VIOLIN), NICCOLO’ MUSUMECI (VIOLIN), MARGHERITA FANTON (VIOLA), ZOLTAN SZABO (CELLO)
CAPODIMONTE – COURTYARD OF THE ROYAL PALACE (PORTA GRANDE)
DURATION 45 MIN
The programme “I racconti di Mamma Orca” ideally represents the link between the archaic past, both popular and cultured, of Naples and its musical school and contemporary music in its most refined sense. A programme that unites the string quartet, which embodies in the collective imagination the main formation of chamber music, and the guitar, which is an instrument with two faces, on the one hand of the court and on the other of the tavern. Roberto De Simone is one of the foremost experts on Neapolitan traditional written and oral music, a veritable living mine of information. But he is also a composer who ranges from popular music (with the NCCP, for example) to classical music. Today’s programme contains two pieces by Roberto De Simone (“I racconti di Mamma Orca” and “Ma fin est mon commencement”) and one by Edoardo Catemario (Suite Gesualdiana), who shares De Simone’s compositional mission linked to Naples and its traditions.
The “racconti di Mamma Orca” by Roberto De Simone dates back to 1996, when it was premiered by guitarist Edoardo Catemario. It is a work in five movements that unfolds through a ‘backwards’ path: The first movement (Toccata) is articulated with divisions and rhythmic joints in the style of Bartok and a harmony that, while retaining its Renaissance matrix, explores more purely dissonant flavours. The second movement ‘Gesualda’ subtly recalls the theme of a famous madrigal by Gesualdo da Venosa and his Gagliarda. The third movement (Senza nome) is a skilful reconstruction of the most daring paths of Neapolitan folk percussion. The guitar is used in search of unusual timbres in the manner of the tambourine.
This is followed by the Pergolese, a movement in which the beautiful aria theme directly taken from Pergolesi takes on almost romantic tonal colours. The last movement is a fugue and variations on the Follia di Spagna. The piece was also the first purely instrumental composition composed by De Simone.
Edoardo Catemario’s ‘Suite gesualdiana’ is a composition directly inspired by De Simone. All the themes used are by Gesualdo da Venosa: the madrigal (su Moro, lasso al mio duolo), the Canzone (freely inspired by the French song) and finally the Gagliarda. The three movements take up Gesualdo’s contrapuntal heritage, enriched with dissonances and rhythmic variations drawn from the Neapolitan tradition through De Simone’s skilful teaching. The gagliarda is entirely articulated in odd rhythms with numbers of five and seven.
First performance.
“Ma fin est mon commencement’ is a canon composed by Guillaume De Machaut. It should be remembered that De Machaut lived in Naples during the reign of Anjou and contributed substantially to the flourishing of the school that was to become a beacon by the 17th century. The canon, which consists of only forty bars, is developed with great compositional skill and set out in successive tonalities without any connecting bridge between the various “scenes”.
First performance